5 Filmmakers under 35 to Watch in 2026 and Beyond | Reel Reflections #4
Kane Parsons and Curry Barker may have opened the flood gates... Who could be next?
Last week, I spoke about the impacts both Curry Barker’s Obsession and Kane Parson’s Backrooms have had on the film industry. Since even just last week, the phenomenon has grown to levels I don’t think anyone even thought was possible. Obsession has seen multiple weekend-over-weekend improvements since its first weekend, and Backrooms set A24’s record for highest-grossing domestic film, making over $100 million in just 6 days.
We’ve already opined about both filmmakers’ backgrounds and what it could mean for filmmakers coming from YouTube and other non-conventional backgrounds. But another new signal could be raised off the backs of the success of these films. Both filmmakers aren’t even close to touching 30. Barker is 26 years old, and Parsons is an astounding 20 years old. This is an extraordinary feat to say the least. In my opinion, the movie-making culture is at its best when new, young voices have their turn to enter the canon and tell their stories. Young filmmakers have been at the forefront of major cultural shifts at the movies in the 70s and 90s.
So, in the spirit of pontificating far too much on this phenomenon we find ourselves in, I wanted to take some time to highlight some other filmmakers under 35 years old that are making their breakouts that you need to be watching.
Before I do, I do want to give a special shoutout to a couple filmmakers on my radar who just missed the cut. Firstly, Jane Schoenbrun, whose breakout film I Saw The TV Glow from 2024 put them on the map, and they’ve just premiered their 3rd feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, at Cannes this year to widespread acclaim. They’ve been an icon of transgenderism and Queer representation in film that I don’t think should go unnoticed, but at 39 years old, they just missed the arbitrary cutoff I set for this list. Alex Ullom also deserves recognition as an incredibly promising young filmmaker. His film, It Ends, premiered at South by Southwest last year and was met with wide acclaim. The film, which was made on a budget of just $50,000 went unacquired out of the festival but recently dropped on the Letterboxd video store, giving it a new spotlight where it was acquired by Neon for theatrical distribution. Finally, I want to shoutout Charlotte Wells, who made her directorial debut with 2022’s Aftersun, one of the most impactful dramas of the last five years that also launched Paul Mescal into the stratosphere (and earned him an Oscar nomination). Like Schoenbrun, Wells probably would have made this list, but she just missed the age cutoff at 38.
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
Eva Victor
Victor, who started as an actor on Showtime’s series Billions, had their breakout in 2025 with Sorry, Baby, one of the funniest and most poignant films on grief and trauma of the year. Victor sublet their cousin's home in rural Maine, secluding themselves for three weeks in the middle of winter with just their cat in order to write Sorry, Baby. I knew immediately they were a star in the making. I was lucky enough to see the film over a month early and very briefly got to meet Victor prior to the screening and listened to them in a q&a after the screening. Sorry, Baby was funny and incredibly sincere, with Victor writing, directing, and starring. I felt they were robbed of an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Victor has a part in Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma as well as a lead role in Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!. I cannot wait to see what they do behind the camera next.
Cooper Raiff
At just 29 years old, Raiff has been making feature films for years now, starting with his debut Shithouse from 2020, when he was just 23 years old. He’s most known for his breakout film Cha Cha Real Smooth, a 2022 romantic dramedy starring himself opposite Dakota Johnson. The film debuted at Sundance and received acclaim as a departure from traditional rom-com norms. Since that time, Raiff has been working to get his next film off the ground as well as diving into television. Initially, he was slated to direct The Trashers, which would have starred David Harbour and Cooper Hoffman; however, the film ran into funding troubles and was sidelined. He instead created, wrote, directed, and starred in the tv series Harper & Hal, also starring Mark Ruffalo and Lili Reinhardt, to even further acclaim. In 2026, he’s set to appear in Jay Duplass’ family comedy-drama film See You When I See You, premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and he has been cast opposite Annie Murphy in the rom-com All That She Wants.
Lance Oppenheim
At just 30 years old, Oppenheim has already solidified himself as one of the premier documentarians of the modern era, garnering acclaim for his films Some Kind of Heaven (2020) and Spermworld (2024) and creating the HBO docu-series Ren Faire (2024). He first broke onto the scene in college at Harvard, where he made a series of short documentaries that caught the attention of the New York Times, who acquired the films and released them as part of their The New York Times Op-Docs series. Since then, he’s officially dove into narrative feature filmmaking, and his debut Primetime is set to release later in 2026. The film, which stars Robert Pattinson as To Catch a Predator’s Chris Hanson, just got its first trailer this week and looks really good. Primetime is being released by A24, whose gambles on younger filmmakers continue to pay off.
Michael Sarnoski
It’s hard to believe how quickly Sarnoski’s career has grown and also how little spotlight he actually shares. At just 26, he made his directorial debut in 2021 with Pig, an incredibly underrated film starring Nicolas Cage about a truffle hunter searching for his prized foraging pig after it is stolen. The film earned Cage a Critics Choice Awards nomination for Best Actor and set Sarnoski on a path that led him to direct a major franchise in 2024’s A Quiet Place: Day One, which he co-wrote with John Krasinski. Krasinski himself approached Sarnoski to direct after Jeff Nichols had dropped out of the project. That film made over $260 million at the box office and was well received among critics and audiences. Now, at 31, Sarnoski has a new thriller, The Death of Robin Hood, coming later this month on June 12th starring Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, and Bill Skarsgard. The film is once again distributed by A24. Sarnoski seems to be establishing himself as a mainstream movie director and has signed on now to helm the film adaptation of the popular video game Death Stranding.
Emma Seligman
With both 2020’s Shiva Baby and 2023’s Bottoms, Seligman has certified herself as one of the most promising young comedy directors we have. Originally a short film she created, Shiva Baby starred Rachel Sennott and became a COVID-era sensation for Seligman, who was just 25 when it was released. The film explored themes of bisexuality and family conflict with a comedic tone brought by Sennott’s great comedic chops. Bottoms, also starring Sennott, was an under-the-radar hit about a group of high school senior girls who form a secret fight club for women at a local high school in order to try and hook up with cheerleaders. That film became almost an instant cult classic. At 31, Seligman is continuing to explore queer and Jewish stories in her films, and her work has been nominated for numerous awards. While she doesn’t have anything official in the works, she’s expressed interest in directing a horror or spooky movie.
Physical Media Highlight
This past weekend I spent some time doing one of my favorite hobbies, going out to thrift stores/retailers looking for new physical media. On this occasion I found some cool items, but none cooler than this One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest box set from Warner Bros. It’s an excellent box set for a film that, once again, is a major blind spot in my filmography. Prior to this set I only owned it on an old DVD snapcase, but now I am happy to own a blu-ray special edition set as well. In addition to the film, this set comes with some character and poster art cards and a booklet along with a really cool themed deck of cards! I collect decks of cards, so this was particularly a welcome surprise.
The Film Box Podcast
This week on the podcast, we began our journey into Steven Spielberg’s Alien films in honor of Disclosure Day’s release later this month. For week 1, we went all the way back to the beginning by revisiting Close Encounters of the Third Kind from 1977. This is one of our longest episodes in a while and was a ton of fun to talk about Spielberg and this film. Give it a listen!
That’s going to do it for this week! As always, thanks for reading and go watch something great! See you next week.